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Book Reviews

In this issue we have a report on a YASN workshop on Gender and Sexuality in January 2016. One of the papers from that workshop by Manel Zouabi appears in this Bulletin. Another article, by Emma Rice, on the Calabash and gendered identity won the 2015-2016 Lionel Cliffe dissertation prize. Two further articles by Zindaba Chisiza and Abayomi Awelewa examine Theatre for Development and Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun respectively. The final set of articles consider Leeds’ relationship with Africa from different approaches. Martin Banham reminds us of some of the remarkable resources of the Leeds Library; Max Farrar provides a more painful reminder, of the history of racial violence in the city; while Christian Høgsbjerg’s interview with Joe Williams links the past with the present in a number of ways.

Reviews

This issue includes the LUCAS 2015-16 Annual Lecture on the excesses of power given by Professor Wole Soyinka, Nobel Laureate, who studied at Leeds in the 1950s. Other articles include pieces by Emma Camp, Jethro Norman and Christian Høgsbjerg and a tribute to the late Prof Vic Allen by Alex Beresford.

Reviews

Our lead article this year is by Professor Ray Bush, who gave the annual LUCAS Lionel Cliffe lecture, analysing the history and causes of the rise and subsequent overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Other pieces include articles on LUCAS African Voices Week, the state of museums in Nigeria and the Ebola crisis, plus the usual news and book reviews.

This year our Bulletin is dedicated to the memory of our friend, colleague, and mentor to a whole host of Leeds academics and students, Professor Lionel Cliffe. We are delighted to be able to announce that we will be setting up an essay prize for student writing on Africa as the Lionel Cliffe prize. Further details will follow later in the year.

Featuring an article by renowned Kenyan playwright, novelist and cultural activist (and alumnus of the School of English of the University of Leeds), Ngugi wa Thiong’o, alongside atricles by James Currey, Toussaint Nothias and Farai Michael Magunha.

A report from the visit by Chinua Achebe in November 2011 to give a poetry reading and take part in a question and answer session at the Rupert Beckett Lecture Theatre (and a fully occupied overflow lecture theatre with live video transmission) by Brendon Nicholls, and articles by Natasha Lloyd-Owen, Joseph Nfi.

Articles by Professor Paul Richards of Wageningen University in the Netherlands, Dr Chukwuma Okoye, Lionel Cliffe and finally on the 25th anniversary of Band Aid, Jane Plastow, Lionel Cliffe and Philip White look back on their own involvement with the famine in Ethiopia.

Articles from a former Leeds research fellow, Solomon Tsehaye, on Eritrean oral culture; from Elinettie Chabwera on madness in the writing of Bessie Head, and from Hannah Cross on migration from West Africa.

This issue is dedicated to our friend and colleague, Dr John Holmes, who served as a Board member for LUCAS from 2000 to 2008. In John’s honour we are delighted that one of his colleagues, Charles Ochieng’ Ong’ondo, has written us an article on language teacher education in Kenya. Our other main article is by Ray Bush, who gave his inaugural professorial lecture as the LUCAS Annual Lecture in 2007.

This edition features three articles by scholars based at Leeds University. At
the heart of the Bulletin is a long personal reflection by Morris Szeftel on the enduring horrors experienced by so many Africans, subjected to regimes both colonial and postcolonial that treat people as 'supernumeraries‘. Jane Plastow also writes on 'The LUCAS Schools‘ Global Citizenship Project', while Martin Banham looks back to his experiences of Nigeria on the eve of independence in 'Ibadan 1960‘.

This issue features articles dealing with the issues of publishing in Africa and African language study, including James Currey, doyen of African publishing, sharing his experience of publishing the work of Ngugi wa Thiong'o over half a lifetime and Bankole Olayebi describing his struggles to survive as a publisher in Nigeria.

This issue includes Professor Lionel Cliffe's Annual LUCAS lecture in April 2001 entitled Struggles for Land in Africa, and an appreciation of Professor Cliffe’s work within Leeds in and on Africa over some 40 years